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When Jerry Brown goes into his bunker – or monk's cell or man-cave – and issues cryptic messages, you know he's up to something. California's governor did it again last weekend during a brief appearance before a state Democratic convention in San Diego. He could have used his time to give Democratic activists a compelling argument why they should get behind his plan to raise Californians' taxes to balance the state budget – the plan that he's been trumpeting day and night, publicly and privately, for weeks. Instead, he barely mentioned taxes, saying, "Look, we've got some issues. We've got...

Contract talks kicking off this month between the state and four employee unions present Gov. Jerry Brown with a political dilemma: How does he deal fairly with his key labor constituency without exposing himself to charges he's kowtowing to them? The 73-year-old Democrat needs labor's continued backing if he decides to run for another term, but California's $9.2 billion state budget deficit limits what he can offer at the bargaining table. Beyond that, Brown wants to put a tax increase before voters in November, but employee contracts that don't share the fiscal pain would give opponents plenty of ammunition to...

It looks like Gov. Jerry Brown will not get his wish, and his tax plan will not be the only one on the November ballot. Multimillionaire Molly Munger, with her income-tax increase for education, and the California Federation of Teachers, with its millionaires tax, show no signs of backing down. Unlike the governor, who fears that multiple measures will amount to a circular firing squad, I say choice is healthy. Let's be honest - all the tax plans are set up to pay for the interests of their backers. Munger and the teachers are all about money going to education....

California revenues last month lagged 5.5 percent behind what Gov. Jerry Brown expected in his just-proposed January budget, a development that Controller John Chiang termed "disappointing." Though the big spring revenue months and Facebook's public stock offering are still to come, the latest report may provide a cautionary signal for Democratic lawmakers who think Brown's forecast is too pessimistic. According to Chiang's office, the state fell $528.4 million behind the governor's latest projection for January, including a $525 million (6.3 percent) shortage in income tax collections. After the first seven months of the fiscal year, the state is $694 million...

STOCKTON - The city has a tentative plan to combat climate change, more than three years after reaching a legal settlement with the Sierra Club and then-Attorney General Jerry Brown. It wouldn't be cheap. If adopted by the Stockton City Council later this year, the plan could cost the city $28.5 million and could cost the private sector $240 million, the document says. The plan itself acknowledges it would require "substantial effort on the part of the entire Stockton community" at a time when people are struggling to pay their bills and keep businesses open.

Is there anyone paying attention who still believes anything Gov. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown has to say on any subject? This is the governor who campaigned to end smoke-and-mirror gimmickry in government budgeting. We know how well he delivered on that. He assured Californians $4 billion would magically appear to balance the budget. About half showed up. He also promised that the budget was balanced when he signed it. Yep, it’s already billions in the red. Now we have . . .

Gov. Jerry Brown laid out a detailed plan to alter California's state and local public retirement systems on Thursday – and immediately drew fire from his core labor constituency. The details delivered to the Legislature on Thursday generally tracked with an outline he unveiled in October. Representatives of a union coalition hoped to negotiate what they consider a less severe package. On Thursday, they said they felt blindsided. "To launch this bomb in the early stages of the legislative season can only be counterproductive," said Steve Maviglio, spokesman for the union coalition . . .

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who pops up from time to time to snipe at Gov. Jerry Brown, suggested today that his fellow Democrat lacks a "vision for greatness" and is "not necessarily the most collaborative executive," and he criticized social service cuts Brown has proposed. "We've got a governor who is doing a very good job focusing on solvency," the former San Francisco mayor, who dropped out of the gubernatorial race in 2010, said on KQED Radio's Forum. "But what we need is a vision for greatness again." Brown and Newsom have a distant relationship, . . .

Gov. Jerry Brown is scaling back the state's highly controversial bullet train project to keep it alive. Just three months ago, his administration unveiled – with great fanfare – a revised "business plan" for building the north-south bullet train system to answer the embryonic project's many critics. The project would be slowed down and stretched out timewise with a new and supposedly more realistic cost structure, officials declared. It would be, California High-Speed Rail Authority chairman Tom Umberg said at the unveiling, "a new time, a new day and a new beginning." But the revised cost, about $100 billion or...

Gov. Jerry Brown is raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for his tax campaign from California Indian tribes at the same time many tribes are seeking to renegotiate lucrative gambling compacts with him. The Democratic governor, who proposes increasing the state sales tax and income taxes on California's highest earners, is considered more accommodating of tribal interests than his predecessor, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and his administration is in compact talks "on various levels" with 15 to 20 tribes, Brown's tribal negotiator, Jacob Appelsmith, said Tuesday. Any compacts Brown signs could significantly affect a gambling industry that generates more than $7...

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama ratcheted up his class warfare rhetoric, calling for an America "where everyone gets a fair shot" and "everyone does their fair share" – his latest attempt to blame upper-income Americans for our economic problems and hike their taxes. In his State of the State address, Gov. Jerry Brown called for closing state budget deficits by increasing income taxes on the "wealthy" and hiking the sales tax. It's only "fair," he said. "Fairness" – code for income redistribution – will be the theme of the 2012 elections. All year we will...

Support for Gov. Jerry Brown's tax initiative is widening among voters, though not too many are happy with the prospects of paying more sales tax. In a survey by the Public Policy Institute of California, 68 percent of likely voters -- up from 60 percent six weeks ago -- support his plan to increase the sales tax by a half percent and raise income taxes on individuals with an annual income of $250,000 or more. "I think it's our duty to take care of the next generation," said San Ramon resident Elizabeth Moore, a retired high school teacher who was...

The state budget contains hundreds of specific provisions but none is bigger, more complicated, more politicized, more emotional – or more important – than the 30 or so billion dollars that it spends on K-12 education. That was true even before Gov. Jerry Brown proposed to increase state school aid and raised its political and societal stakes even higher, although he claims it would be less complicated. Brown's proposed 2012-13 budget would increase K-12 spending by $4.4 billion – but only if voters pass temporary increases in sales and income taxes next fall. School officials worry, however, that the supposed...

Jerry Brown evidently does not want to join the nascent movement to overhaul – perhaps radically – California's dysfunctional political structure. "Contrary to those critics who fantasize that California is a failed state, I see unspent potential and incredible opportunity," Brown said last week in his State of the State address to the Legislature, chastising "dystopian journalists (who) write stories about the impending decline of our economy, our culture and our politics." Implicitly, Brown is telling us that he and the Legislature can govern California effectively without making the structural changes that are often touted in books, op-ed articles and...

Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to finally fix California's finances relies on several dubious assumptions, including that voters approve his proposal to raise taxes in November and that the revenue from those come in at the level the administration projects. But even if those assumptions prove true, the governor faces perhaps an even greater challenge: winning support from his fellow Democrats to pay off billions in debt accumulated through years of budget balancing gimmicks. Brown has put a big target on what he has deemed "the wall of debt," which amounts to $33.5 billion from skipped payments, internal loans and traditional...

Despite a huge state budget deficit, Gov. Jerry Brown said last week that he not only intends to increase spending, he also plans to move ahead with California's questionable high-speed rail project, even though multiple critiques conclude it is a waste of tax money. ... The governor's refusal to delay or kill the implausible train project should make taxpayers wary of a bill introduced last week by Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-West Hollywood, to allow "public rail transit projects" to avoid rigorous environmental review.

"Soak the rich" has a populist ring that resonates in a period of economic uncertainty, and making the rich pay their "fair share" of taxes has become a rallying cry for those on the political left with no small appeal to those in the middle. Gov. Jerry Brown hopes to tap into that sentiment with a ballot measure that would increase everyone's sales taxes a bit while hitting the very affluent with higher income taxes. If he's successful, however, there are downside risks, beginning with the possibility that some will move legally, if not physically, to states with lower or...

Now that we've had time to digest Gov. Jerry Brown's hastily-unveiled 2012-13 budget proposal summary, we've boiled down the full list of changes he's suggesting to streamline state government: Agency restructuring: • Eliminates the California Volunteer Agency and shifts its programs into the Office of Planning and Research. • Eliminates the cabinet status of the California Emergency Management Agency and makes it an office that reports directly to the governor. • Eliminates the California Technology Agency and places its functions under the new Government Operations Agency. • Establishes a new Business and Consumer Services Agency which will oversee: Consumer Affairs...

Sacramento -- Gov. Jerry Brown's budget plan released last week poses a stark choice for Californians: approve a five-year $35 billion tax increase in November or watch the hatchet drop on public school funding - with cuts so deep the school year could be shortened by almost a month. Under the proposal, schools would face the bulk of midyear cuts if voters reject the taxes. Of the $5.3 billion Brown wants to slice from the budget if his plan is turned down, $4.8 billion would be taken from public schools.In releasing his budget, the governor rejected the notion that choosing...

SACRAMENTO -- Putting schools and voters squarely in the middle of what could be an explosive battle over taxes, Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday laid out a fiscal blueprint that heavily relies on cash the state doesn't yet have. Brown called for a budget that assumes $6.9 billion in new revenues from a tax measure he plans to take to voters in November. The governor says passage of the measure would wipe out a $9.2 billion deficit through mid-2013 and give schools $4.9 billion more than this fiscal year. It was the opening act to what will be Brown's main...

Gov. Jerry Brown's new budget plan would eliminate a few thousand state jobs and consolidate or ax nearly 50 state organizations, according to documents released this afternoon. Brown's first draft of the budget for the 2012-13 fiscal year that begins July 1 envisions reducing the state workforce by some 3,000 positions, mostly from the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The cuts fill a small part of the $9.2 billion budget hole projected through June 2013. When asked whether state workers could expect layoffs or job elimination through attrition, Department of Finance Director Ana Matosantos said the goal is "reductions in...

Gov. Jerry Brown proposed Thursday slashing nearly $1.4 billion in welfare and child care aid for the poor while holding voters liable for $5 billion in education funding with a November tax measure. The Democratic governor announced his January budget plan this afternoon after his proposal was inadvertently leaked on his Department of Finance website. He estimates the state faces a $9.2 billion general fund deficit through June 2013, which he proposes to bridge with mostly cuts and taxes. Brown will ask voters to pass a $6.9 billion ballot measure in November that raises taxes on sales and income starting...

When Jerry Brown began his first term as governor 37 years ago, his ambition to quickly vacate the office soon became obvious.Scarcely a year later, Brown launched the first of three unsuccessful presidential campaigns. And in between two presidential forays, Brown ran for re-election to a second term as governor and then, as his governorship expired, lost a U.S. Senate bid.Or to put it another way, his eight-year reign was a perpetual campaign with interludes of governing that were dominated by symbolic acts to impact his campaign of the moment. When Brown ran for governor again in 2010, after stints...

Gov. Jerry Brown's campaign to raise taxes has raised more than $1.2 million in two weeks, according to the campaign's first financial filing with the California secretary of state's office. The sum was raised from just nine donations, the largest of which, $500,000, came from an arm of the California Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. The state building trades union donated $250,000 through its political action committee, Members' Voice of the State Building Trades. The contributions are the first large donations following Brown's announcement this month of a ballot measure to temporarily raise the state sales tax and higher...

When Gov. Jerry Brown re-entered political life via the Oakland mayor's office in 1998, everyone expected the return of the ultra-liberal policies that had defined his political career and earned him the nickname he never liked. But his actions as a mayor, from promoting downtown development to opening a military school to pushing law and order were hardly the trademarks of Gov. Moonbeam. Brown made the transition from political visionary to pragmatic politician in Oakland because idealism didn't help the city address its crime, education and fiscal challenges. Oakland's current mayor, Jean Quan, could borrow a few pages from his...

"You don't normally end on a triumphant note. You enter in triumph and you leave on tiptoe," quoth Jerry Brown at a Tuesday press conference to sum up the first year of his second stint as California governor. For one hour, Brown was highly quotable: "I'm a reformed reformer," he offered. And: "Just because a bill is useless doesn't mean I should veto it." "The main story is the budget," said Brown, who gave himself a passing grade. He had promised voters that, despite a $25 billion shortfall, he would balance the state budget without gimmicks. He came close to...

Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday said Oakland city officials can - and should - keep the port open in the event of future demonstrations. The governor, speaking to reporters in a wide-ranging news conference at his office in the Capitol, was asked to comment on Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's assertion last week during a meeting with Chronicle editors that the city may be unable to prevent further shutdowns of the port. "There are the resources under mutual aid, there are resources in Oakland - with some leadership and some imagination not only can they keep the port open but they...

Fueled by a backlash against the wealthy, Gov. Jerry Brown and left-leaning groups want voters to tax the rich next November.Californians have shown strong support for the idea in polls so far, despite the fact that they haven't passed a statewide tax hike since 2004. Brown said this month "the only tax that's overwhelmingly popular is the tax on wealthier people."Partisans have feuded for years at the federal level over tax rates for the rich. Republicans argue that tax cuts spur investment and economic growth. Democrats say such "supply-side" theories are unfounded and that lower rates are merely a giveaway...

As Gov. Jerry Brown participated in a Capitol menorah-lighting ceremony this week to mark the onset of the Jewish holiday Hanukkah, he uttered a secular prayer for a miracle that would make California a model of carbon-free energy.Today's miracle, he said, "is not to find more oil, but to utilize the sun," adding, "when we continue to use our intelligence, we're going to take that sun through the miracle of modern science and technology, and we're going to light up California, our cars, our homes, our air conditioners."It was one of several recent events at which Brown disparaged global-warming agnostics...

Gov. Jerry Brown sees a modern day message for proponents of solar power in the story of Hanukkah. Speaking at the Capitol Menorah Lighting this morning, the Democratic governor cast the eight-day Jewish holiday, which begins tomorrow, as a good time to reflect on "the whole idea that we're running out of oil so we need a miracle."

SAN FRANCISCO – Gov. Jerry Brown railed Thursday against politicians who doubt climate change, calling them "political lemmings" and the chief obstacle in the fight against global warming. "The main thing we have to deal with in climate change is the skepticism, the denial and the cult-like behavior of the political lemmings that would take us over the cliff," the Democratic governor said at a high-profile conference on climate change at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. At a conference that included Brown's predecessor, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, Brown said climate change has...

Hours after Gov. Jerry Brown issued a spirited attack on politicians who doubt the significance of climate change, Brown's predecessor -- former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- praised Brown but urged a spirit of inclusiveness. "To me, it made no difference if a Democrat had a great idea or a Republican had a great idea, or if someone from the outside had a great idea, or if someone from within the office had a great idea," Schwarzenegger said this afternoon at Brown's conference on climate change at the California Academy of Science in San Francisco. "The more inclusive you are about...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Gov. Jerry Brown railed this morning against politicians who doubt climate change, calling "political lemmings" the chief obstacle in combating global warming. "The main thing we have to deal with in climate change is the skepticism, the denial and the cult-like behavior of the political lemmings that would take us over the cliff," Brown said at a high-profile conference on climate change at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. The Democratic governor said climate change has lengthened the state's fire season and quickened its snowmelt, affecting agriculture and taxing public infrastructure. He acknowledged that Californians...

California's public schools received a rare bit of good news Tuesday when Gov. Jerry Brown largely exempted them from automatic reductions in state aid, citing improvements in the economy. However, Brown's declaration that the economy is getting better and he doesn't have to squeeze all automatic spending cut "triggers" also lessened the air of crisis and therefore complicated Brown's efforts to persuade voters to raise taxes next year. "The economy of California is recovering," Brown said as he announced that about half of the $4 billion in questionable new revenue is materializing, adding, "We're getting wealthier by the day but...

Gov. Jerry Brown will slash higher education, child care and school bus service, but he will largely spare K-12 classrooms from mid-year cuts under a revised budget forecast to be released at noon, sources said. K-12 school districts were at risk of losing as much $1.5 billion - the equivalent of seven instructional days - under the budget Brown and lawmakers enacted earlier this year. But sources said they will face a smaller $70 million reduction, or about $11 per student. That should avert massive reductions in the school calendar or other drastic measures for most districts. Districts will still...

A strong majority of Californians support Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to raise the sales tax and income taxes on high earners to help close the state's budget deficit, according to a new Public Policy Institute of California poll. The poll - an early measurement of a proposal that has far to go until voters can weigh in next November - found that 65 percent of all adults surveyed support his plan, which would increase the sales tax by a half cent and raise taxes on high income earners, starting with individuals who make more than $250,000 per year. The poll...

Governor Brown wants to raise rates on the highest earners, who already pay nearly half of all income taxes and whose incomes can fluctuate wildly. California's budget is in a constant state of peril or, perhaps more accurately, a budgetary inferno, because of, as Gov. Jerry Brown accurately noted in his recent Open Letter to the People of California, "years of failing to match spending with tax revenues as budget gimmicks instead of honest budgeting became the norm." Ironically Brown's new proposal to raise tax revenue employs same old approach to extract additional dollars from Californians rather than make tough,...

...Brown was unable to pass the largest state tax increase in U.S. history earlier this year because legislative Republicans, whose votes were needed due to California's 2/3rds vote requirement to raise taxes, kept their pledge to constituents to oppose any and all efforts to raise taxes. So Brown is now going out to collect signatures, with financial backing of government sector unions and Hollywood, to put an income and sales tax hike on the ballot. (Side note: Brown should hire ATR to consult him, because as we told him back in January, his tax hikes wouldn’t get through the legislature...

Gov. Jerry Brown has formally proposed a $7 billion a year increase in sales and income taxes to close the state's chronic budget deficit. Whether it will be the only tax increase on the November ballot is uncertain. Several others are in the works, and if they reach the ballot as well, voter confusion could doom all. But assuming that Brown's stands alone, how would the campaign shape up? By next year, he presumably will have pulled the spending cut "triggers" built into the 2011-12 budget because revenues are not meeting its extremely optimistic levels, which would mean schools, colleges...

From “An Open Letter to the People of California”: I am filing today an initiative with the Attorney General’s office that would generate nearly $7 billion in dedicated funding to protect education and public safety. I am going directly to the voters because I don’t want to get bogged down in partisan gridlock as happened this year. The stakes are too high.

Gov. Jerry Brown finally spoke out Monday on the Occupy Wall Street protests - sort of. While we still haven't heard what the governor actually thinks about the protests, he did this week wade into controversies over how university police have treated demonstrators. In a letter to the commission that sets training standards for law enforcement around the state, Brown wrote that he is "seriously concerned that the rules governing the use of force, particularly pepper spray, are not well understood in the context of civil disobedience and various forms of public protest." Citing the Occupy protests around California, Brown...

Gov. Jerry Brown will ask voters to raise nearly $7 billion annually by hiking taxes on upper-income earners and sales in California over the next five years, according to sources who have been briefed. The Democratic governor is expected to file his tax initiative for the November 2012 ballot as soon as Friday. He wants the tax plan to help bridge next year's budget deficit, which the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office pegs at $12.8 billion. Under the measure, California would impose a half-cent sales tax increase starting in 2013 and an income tax hike on high-income earners starting retroactively with...

Gov. Jerry Brown has left the state for parts unknown. Brown's office announced this afternoon that the Democratic governor had left the state, but it declined to say where Brown is going or for how long.

Last year, a medical-technology firm called Numira Biosciences, founded in 2005 in Irvine, California, packed its bags and moved to Salt Lake City. The relocation, CEO Michael Beeuwsaert told the Orange County Register, was partly about the Utah destination’s pleasant quality of life and talented workforce. But there was a big “push factor,” too: California’s steepening taxes and ever-thickening snarl of government regulations. “The tipping point was when someone from the Orange County tax [assessor] wanted to see our facility to tax every piece of equipment I had,” Beeuwsaert said. “In Salt Lake City at my first networking event...

California’s economy has remained so weak that the respected Legislative Analyst’s Office predicts that the state will have to enact mid-year budget cuts to schools and other services. In a report released this morning, the LAO estimates that state revenues will come in $3.7 billion below what was projected in the state budget this summer. That shortfall will force the state to enact $2 billion in so-called “trigger” cuts. The LAO’s prediction does not come as a surprise. State Controller John Chiang recently said state revenues are $1.5 billion behind projections while the state Department of Finance said revenues were...

I missed this during my travel to BlogCon 2011 in Denver, which I reached by airline travel — an economical and safe choice on a route served by multiple carriers and requiring little government subsidy to use. The competition for this route falls short of that for the Los Angeles-San Francisco route, though, where more than a half-dozen carriers offer flights between California’s two largest metropolises, complete with choices of departure and arrival airports on either end. Despite the lack of need for fast and reliable transportation between the two cities, Governor Jerry Brown told the LA Times editorial board...

The fight over the California Dream Act, controversial legislation signed by Gov. Jerry Brown to help illegal immigrant students pay for college, is not over. Earlier this week, State Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Hesperia, started gathering signatures for a referendum that would eliminate part of the act. He wants to overturn Assembly Bill 131, which Brown signed on Oct. 9 allowing illegal immigrant students to apply for state-funded scholarships.

KMJ News has learned about an assassination plot targeting Governor Brown.

Sacramento - California's chief budget officer was arrested early Friday on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, Highway Patrol authorities said. .. officers saw Department of Finance director Ana Matosantos' Acura weaving in downtown Sacramento at 12:43 a.m. and pulled her over at P and 6th streets. Campbell said Matosantos showed signs of intoxication and the officer concluded she was drunk after conducting a field sobriety test. Matosantos was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence .. She was cooperative with officers during the arrest, he added. Matosantos has served as finance director under Gov. Jerry Brown since he took...

When the dust settled on Gov. Jerry Brown's first legislative session in nearly three decades, no group had won more than organized labor, which heralded its largest string of victories in nearly a decade. ... Those unions and others helped bankroll Brown's campaign last year. Brown has long compared governing to steering a canoe — you paddle a little on the left, he says, and a little on the right. And indeed, he signed some measures desired by key interest groups this year while vetoing others. Labor was no exception: He rejected a proposal to unionize tens of thousands of...